August’s Testimony – Maple Lake Academy

I went to Maple Lake Academy when I was 14 in 2009. At this time, I had been diagnosed with NLD and Bipolar disorder. They had me on very high doses of Lithium and Abilify and would routinely cycle me through other medication as well. While I was at Maple Lake, they nicknamed me “the sloth” because I was routinely lethargic and would fall asleep in the middle of doing things during the day. I also drooled and developed facial twitches. They reacted to my lethargy as though it was disobedience.

Pain point restraints and interventions became a regular way of life for me. I had a hard time waking up and I would be “escorted” to breakfast, then to class, where I would be held down in a restraint. I spent so many long hours in restraints that I developed bruises all over my arms and wrists. Before Maple Lake, I had been a victim of child sexual assault and every time I was placed in a restraint with the heavy body of an adult lying on top of me, making it hard for me to breathe, I would experience vivid rape flashbacks. I screamed a lot during these times. They deemed it disobedience and continued to punish me.

At some point, about two years in, they realized I was getting worse. My parents visited me and took me to a doctor — the medical care I had been denied at MLA. The doctor quickly realized I had been experiencing serious thyroid problems as a result of the lithium. I was barely responsive at this point, had a hard time eating and moving on my own. My parents decided to send me to a diagnostic center, Meridell Achievement Center in Texas, to get my diagnoses re-evaluated.

At Meridell, they decided that I did not, in fact, have bipolar but instead had a mysterious seizure disorder they called “cerebral dysrhythmia”. They completely revoked the bipolar meds and put me on a med that was used to treat seizures. At this point, with space from the disassociative episodes I was having at Maple Lake from the restraints and with my thyroid issues clearing up, I was doing a lot better. I remember crying and saying I felt like I was born again at 16. My parents and I thought Meridell had been a miracle cure. I begged my parents not to send me back to Maple Lake, but they did. I guess at the time they had no reason to trust me.

Back at Maple Lake, I still hadn’t “earned trust” from my previous “misconduct”. The restraints started again, this time for no reason. They had me on “safety” status, where I was not allowed to have any books, notebooks, or other coping mechanisms. My life was confined to a mattress in the middle of the floor. I was not allowed to speak to the other girls. I was watched in the bathroom. All I had was my own mind and I remember just telling myself “we will get through this even if we have to age out.”

The therapists and staff at Maple Lake called me a liar. They said “cerebral dysrhythmia” wasn’t a real diagnosis. (the ironic thing is that they were right, I have been since diagnosed with PTSD and ADHD, and this is most likely what I was experiencing then too.) When my “spacy” and “lethargic” behavior (aka PTSD) started up again, they used this to prove I had been lying about “getting better” at Meridell. For some reason, being called a liar and a manipulator hurt worse than the physical stuff. I was desperate for help.

The restraints started again, the bruises, and with that, the disassociation that made me unresponsive. My parents pulled me from Maple Lake soon after, and I was placed in two programs back-to-back until I was almost eighteen. I do not have NLD, Bipolar disorder, or “cerebral dysthymia”. But as an adult, I get to live with C-PTSD, memory, GI, thyroid, muscular and nervous system problems because of my time at Maple Lake.

To learn more about Maple Lake Academy, visit the Maple Lake Academy Archive